This invention relates to methods for treating autoimmune diseases.
Responses of the immune system initiate the destruction and elimination of invading organisms and toxic molecules produced by them. Because these immune reactions are destructive, it is essential that they be made in response only to molecules that are foreign to the host and not to those of the host itself. The ability to distinguish foreign molecules from self molecules is a fundamental feature of the immune system. Occasionally the immune system fails to make this distinction and reacts destructively against the host's own molecules; such autoimmune diseases can be fatal. Thus, tolerance to self antigens breaks down, causing the components of the immune system such as T or B cells (or both) to react against their own tissue antigens. Multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, myasthenia gravis, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, and systemic lupus erythematosus are a few examples of such autoimmune diseases.